Tammy525

Miz, will you have any internet access where you are going? We miss you so much. I did not even know cats could get HW!! Does anyone in OH treat? We treat for fleas and ticks. Miz, I am glad you both recovered from your tick illness. My cousin went through a terrible time with Lyme's disease and it took FOREVER to diagnose him ( a year) and he is a doctor!!

Miztiki, I am shedding tears for you!! I am so sorry you are going through all this. I have no help for your pup, Scout is dog aggressive as well, but please know I am thinking of you and have been praying for you all these months while missing you. Remember Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I will pray for Fynne as well.

So glad she is back, I love her name.

Sorry, checking this thread way late! I can't imagine PM to ask for free vet advice, but I know a lot of people are not as boundary conscious as I am. The head of the largest children's ER for three states lives at the end of our street AND goes to church with us. My dh is ALWAYS wanting to call him up to ask this or that. I won't let him. I just won't. He thinks I am crazy, but I feel it is just really taking advantage and wouldn't do it unless it was life or death and I had no other option! I am going to make my dh read this post. Thanks for helping me, AK Dog Doc, with my obtuse dh, an unlikely side effect of your predicament!

When we had our golden retriever whenever I put lotion on my legs, I would have to lock myself into a room until I was COMPLETELY soaked in. She would chase you all over the house to lick your legs. It became really funny when my mom dog-sat her for a weekend, and I forgot to tell her about this idiosyncrasy (my mom is not a big dog person, she loves what I love because she loves me, but doesn't really love the dog for itself, you know?)

Good luck, Smiley. Scout has some leanings in that direction at times, but then seems to snap out of it, when his lab side overtakes the BC side. You can actually see this happen, its like a dissociative disorder or something! But we'd rather he keep both sides, as just when the lab side is driving us crazy, he switches to his BC side and vice versa.

KrisK, Interested in hearing every word, we keep going back and forth as to whether we would like to add some ducks and chickens. So, any time you have to chronicle your experience, I will read every word!! Good luck with your transports and I hope all goes well. Oh, and good luck resisting those ducklings, they are way adorable.

Thank you Julie and Rebecca, I went straight to the site and learned A LOT!!! Tonite after the dogs and cats are in for the night, we will return the bunny to its nest and hope and pray for the mom to show up (while we are in for the night of course!!) At least the smart mom bunny made the nest just inside the dog yard that our dogs never use, at least in the summer. So, it is a somewhat protected location from predators of the non-domestic variety. Never dreamed it was illegal which instantly convinced my boys, in spite of their significant attachment, that we need to do the right thing and return it. So, Becca, we won't be raising it like your friend, I am not that brave! Just pray that mamma comes back, the site said she would check every nite for a week. Tommorrow we are off to the county fair, a couple of counties over, for the 8 am rabbit show. It is a pretty rural county. Me, a hopeless city girl who would really rather be sleeping at 6:30am instead of travelling to unknown territory to look at bunnies!! But I love my boys and we have been talking about bunnies, ducks, and chickens for a couple of years.

I am sorry if I am posting in the wrong place, but if bunnies count as livestock, I have questions. We seem to have adopted a wild baby bunny. It is young, about 4 inches long (two days ago it was 3 inches long). It is currently living in a wooden crate on our screen porch. We are feeding it lettuce, carrots, and grass. We are rinsing the lettuce and shaking it off, this is working for water for now. Are bunnies like other small animals? (ie guniea pigs) Do we need a water bottle? Will a wild bunny be a pet? (It is acting like a total pet right now) Do we need to buy bunny food? Thanks for any info, clueless about bunnies.

I am so sorry to hear of your loss. May your rewards be rich for all of the kindness you showed to this dog. He got to you just in time.

We have HomeAgain. That is painful news, thanks for the heads-up so we can be watching out for that, it is almost time to re-up for one of our dogs.

So sorry to hear this!! Prayers will continue.

Thinking of you and Rune and her charges. How is he doing?

Thanks for that tip Bexie, I am already friends, vicariously, through my dad and some of the kids from the family go to school with my boys. They own zillions of acres around here and rent the rest that belong to other people. They have sold little parcels of it for houses (like maybe 10 houses over 200 acres). There are multiple family members scattered around their property in houses here and there. It is a great set-up and I am thrilled that the farming set is spread throughout their family and they are close in age with us and have children our kids' ages. I feel like this helps to protect the land from development. We have no water or sewar or gas, that helps to protect us, too. But wow do I dread the day that changes. I pray every day nothing will change until at least my kids are grown. They are happy people who enjoy their lives, so hopefully that means they will be sticking with it. Multi-generational, too. I should be able to find out exactly what they spray with and when, and I wil take your suggestions for who to contact (saving the info) We always try to be good neighbors just as a general policy for life. But you never know what your kids or dogs might take it in their heads to do!!! Avoiding your ball going into their field is the biggest current risk, they have planted now and I would be horrified to disturb any of that. Now, really, I need to leave this topic as it is not in my realm of knowledge and I don't want to be where I don't belong. Back to general discussion and coffee break!! Thank you for tolerating me for this long.

I did hear something about nitrogen. The field had been planted with corn, then left fallow last summer and grew all kinds of weeds, etc. There was a lot of goldenrod and several tree beginnings. I am just happy it is being used again, do I need to do anything besides close the windows and keep the kids/dogs in when they spray? And, thanks for the agricultural info, I know NOTHING about it, but am always interested in learning something new. Both my parents grew up farming and they are next door with my grandma, a woman who thinks she has nothing to offer and yet has more useful info in her head than 10 libraries could hold (and she makes the world's greatest pie). They have a two good size gardens and my dad has made quick friends with the farmers that use the land all around us.

Yes, Bill, that is what they were expecting to harvest. However, after testing the soil they have planted soybeans instead. Which is sadness for this city girl, the corn made such a nice privacy fence for our pool. Back to Julie, I did not intend to hijack your thread, especially since I know absolutely nothing about this subject, save what I hear from my dad and what I see the local farmer doing!

I am only replying because my dad and I were just discussing the field next to us. My dad said his cousin in Indiana said farmland is renting for $200.00 per acre, for farming, not for livestock. The field next to us has been widened and cleared and is now 6 acres. The family farming it is very experienced over several generations and expects to make $24,000 for those 6 acres of corn in Ohio. We were curious what their actual profit was as they have all the heavy duty equipment and have spent a HUGE amount of time preparing the field. It was planted with corn year before last (which provided nice privacy for our pool!), but it was left alone last summer and became very overgrown. So, I don't know if that was any help....I was interested to see that there are different prices based on how you plan to use the land.

I moved to the coffee break section, as this thread is now about Ben rather than dogs!! Thanks to everyone.

Thank you Tassie and Laura, that was very sweet. Ben had a rough time at school yesterday, it is just crowded and he got knocked into by someone's backpack (unintentionally). His dad called his teacher (my dh teaches in the school system) and they are going to have him leave early from classes, to see if this helps. I am going to call him mid morning and pick him up between speech for little one, kindergarten bus, and preschool dropoff, if he needs it. Everyone at his school is MAD, their protectiveness of Ben is very nice, but that has ramifications for the poor child to whom the dog belonged, so we are hoping to tone that down. Stitiches out today, yipee!!!!

So sorry you were so sick!! Glad you are feeling better, that is just the worst. At least it is usually blessedly short. Our golden waited 12-15 hours at times, especially if it was raining! (she was picky!!) She never had any problems from being so persnickety. Scout would probably hold it at least 16 hours, but it has not been more than 4-5. Rosie, forget it, she would go after two hours!

Back to school for 1/2 a day today, which was painful for him, but he did it!! Having a lot of trouble with the "run-around" in working on what happened to the dog. Took a cat to the vet today, so had an occasion to ask her about it. She said, drive by and if the dog is still alive on day 10, forget about worrying about rabies. Which I found to be quite helpful as I had read the incubation period could be several months, so what is the use of 10 days? But she said that if there is enough rabies in the saliva to pass it on to a human, the dog will be dead within one week, and that there have been no dog rabies cases around our area for at least a decade. She was most helpful (again, I like this doc). Thank you for all of your help!!

Ben is doing well today, walking some with mild pain only. One wound is still draining. I am now less concerned about the fact that he was sutured, as the stitches were placed quite widely apart and there has been plenty of room for drainage. No redness or swelling or pain. Maybe he will be ok? Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support. Still working on what is happening with the biting dog.

Scout goes ape-nuts when anyone comes anywhere near the yard, much less into it. Yet, it amazes me the number of people who, being complete strangers to Scout, are still happy to get out of their car when he is lunging and barking. He has never bitten anyone, and hopefully never will, but have some common sense and wait until I can get there to call him off. (or if you are not invited by me, pull right on out of the driveway and go on home!!) Any dog can bite, some dogs more likely than others. Certainly in our situation the dog that bit Ben was set up to bite. My dd's preschool teacher said she once had a 100% trustworthy dog who barked/snarled like mad until the person came in, but never had any problems. However, the meter man came, and promptly after telling the guy, "don't worry, he's harmless", he bit the guy!! Lesson learned.

Of course, this has become an issue very near and dear to our hearts given the attack on Ben this week. While I agree that where there are kids and dogs, there will be incidents, I think it all comes down to proper care of kids and dogs to keep them both safe. My dh and I are really struggling with our part in this attack on our son. We feel like we are really good parents. We are paranoid freaks in terms of what we let our kids be exposed to, pool safety, dog safety, who we let them be around adult-wise, very conservative about where we let them go. Friends come HERE where we can supervise to our standards. And yet, our gaurd was down for 2 minutes, and BAM, our poor Ben has been suffering almost a week, and we feel so incredibly grateful that it isn't worse than it is!!! An hour missing sounds ridiculous to me, I can't imagine a two year old out of my sight for that long. Maybe 3 minutes depending on how trustworthy the 2 year old is (my twins weren't safe for three seconds, but my last two you would be ok with 3 minutes, given it usually takes 4 minutes to choke to death!!) That being said, is there a point when a child can be left unsupervised? My dog savvy 11 year old son, straight A student, as brilliant and mature as they come walked within a chain's link of a barking, snarling dog!!! What was he thinking? What was my normally incredibly responsible dh thinking to turn his back to that situation for a minute??? How unlucky was it that both my son and dh took that moment to BOTH let their guard down at the same time. Were they lulled by the fact that the dog always acted that way but never attacked before? It happens, no one is perfect every minute. But let me tell you, the paranoid freaks that we are, now we are even more cautious and terrified of all the dangers we have never even thought of. Will we ever let them go to someone's house? Will we ever let them near a friend's dog (a regular dog, not a mean dog) Ok, long and rambling, obviously the trauma we have suffered has ramifications far and wide. Thank you for letting me vent. What to do? How to keep kids and dogs safe? How to protect kids from other adult idiots and from their own parents when they behave like idiots?

I can't imagine that, Claire!!! He has gotten so big, but an injury like this makes him feel just like my baby again!! (He hasn't been a baby, just my feelings) He actually woke up much better, it is draining around the stitch and is not painful or swollen anymore. I was up all night worrying about him, don't know if it was prayer or air, but I'll take it!!! I went ahead and took him back to the doc, because it was before hours, so I couldn't call to cancel. He felt he was healing well. I am so grateful things got better instead of worse from last nite, very surprised! Thanks for all your help, hopefully we are on the mends.